The University of Ottawa and its Senate, from the eyes of students

Faculty of Education Response to SAC’s Iron Fist Award

The Student Appeal Centre (SAC) of the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa (SFUO) has given its inaugural “Iron Fist Award” to the Dean of the Faculty of Education, Marie-Josée Berger (link-1, link-2).

I contacted the professors in the Faculty of Education to ask how this serious situation affecting our university can best be addressed within our collegial governance structure and within our academic culture.

Below are the responses I received from Education Faculty members.

Also note former Education Faculty member Dr. Steven E. Noble’s comments on the management of the Faculty at the U of O Watch blog (here).

It must be a great meaningful prize to have these idiots wrote such a negative no responsible comments! Miss Cook “cook”, miss the real picture by concentrate in First vs. Fist! She might be a good candidate foe the prize next year with this kind of superficial concentration!!

The horrendous treatment by Berger when she revoked my (illegal) teaching contract and through my grievance discovered that she was paying me, at one point, below that of a lecturer (rather than at the assistant professor level) – and constructing a ‘normal’ teaching load at 8, rather than than traditional five that other education faculty teach and arbitrarily cut a month of my salary. The Dean was going to remove all my benefits and cut my salary by 20% for the “privilege” of teaching in that Faculty in my last year, but the Association said it couldn’t go after Berger for the contract because it was illegal. I was even asked to teach a ninth course at the graduate level – and for what? Without warning my office lock was changed and my mail box was changed despite she and I negotiating and agreeing to a contract for 2010/2011. Why? Because I grieved the salary cut and loss of all benefits. And no one ‘crosses’ the Dean, I was told at the time! And on and on and on (I was paid over $80,000 in additional money after being terminated and after teaching only 2 and a half years…. this person is a real piece of work. And the litany of lies she spouted during my grievance hearing (all duly noted as she spoke). . Not only students have a problem with Berger, but so do several profs! I’ve written about my experiences in this faculty elsewhere – I’ve kept a rather thick file on her. The responses are not surprising among the profs quoted, but I’m disgusted there is this level of protecting someone like her. There have been rumours about side deals with the Dean all the while I was there.